EU implores Norway to accept more refugees

The European Union (EU) asks Norway to receive a bigger quota of refugees

The EU Immigration Commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos, has sent a letter to Sylvi Listhaug, in which he encourages her to be ‘as ambitious as possible’.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recently asked for help transferring 40,000 additional quota refugees from Libya and other countries in the region.

Avramopoulos said that he ‘fully supports the initiative’. He sent a letter on the matter to all EU and Schengen countries, including Norway.

‘In the letter, I asked them to be as ambitious as possible, and I specifically asked them to increase efforts to accept quota refugees from North Africa, and the Horn of Africa,’ he said.

NTB news agency has read the letter, which was sent to the immigration minister, Sylvi Listhaug of Fremskrittspartiet (Frp), on the 25th of August.

The EU’s goal is to step up aid to refugees in Libya, Egypt, Niger, Ethiopia and Sudan. These are countries that many refugees travel either from, or through, as they try to reach Europe across the Mediterranean.

It’s equally important to help people from here as to accept quota refugees from Syria’, said Avramopoulos.

‘I would therefore urge you to be as ambitious as possible in assessing the efforts for quota refugees,’ he wrote.

The UN has asked Norway, and other countries, to provide renewed quota figures by Friday the 15th of September.

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